This blog shares our reflections on how digitization is changing the world, with specific attention to cultural processes and contexts.

Bothered (or not bothered) to care? Affects, Affordances and Algorithms of Digital Caring

This post was written by Peter Safronov Affective valences of AI-assisted communication  When dealing with algorithms, users frequently imbue them with affective valences (Bucher, 2017). People, for example, become emotionally invested while interacting with chatbots, much as they would with a human (Araujo, 2018). AI-powered technologies provide personalized experiences suited to the user’s specific wants…

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ON DISPLAY: WHAT’S INSIDE THE SHOP?

This post was written by Claire van den Helder How do international students in Amsterdam use Instagram to navigate their new social surroundings, and how do the perils and joys of curating messages shape their self-development? The project “On Display” seeks to understand how users craft and negotiate their Instagram presence by doing in-depth interviews…

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Abraham begat Isaac; and precarity begets more precarity

This post was written by Tristan Bannerman a Research Master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. A major theme of the recent GDC conference Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production was that of the sense of insecurity in labor and life that we find online, more succinctly we would say precarity. Precariousness in many…

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Rethinking Power Relations of Knowledge Production

This post was written by Nadia Murady, a Research Master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. The conference ‘Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production’ addressed a wide range of issues and research areas. The two-day conference aimed to highlight a global perspective on these topics, steering away from a Eurocentric perspective. It facilitated an…

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(Self)branding and (Self)care: A Neoliberal Disconnect

This post is written by Sara Gelao, a Research Master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. Introduction Labor: digital, relational, immaterial, affective, cognitive, precarious, cultural, creative, free. All these buzzwords are an attempt to define what labor is today, fluid as it is. None of them is mutually exclusive, in fact, they all co-exist. What…

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Interrogating the ‘Global’

This post was written by Lars Klute, Research Master’s student, University of Amsterdam Interrogating the ‘Global’ What exactly does the ‘Global’ in Global Digital Cultures mean? Staking out this field, the website of the University of Amsterdam’s research priority area Global Digital Cultures (GDC) uses phrases such as “concerns the global variety of daily cultural…

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What is Authentic?

This post was written by Gaurika Chaturvedi, Research Master’s student, New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam What is authentic? This is a question that creators, audiences, advertisers, and researchers all ask themselves. Although that last group is preoccupied with how others perceive authenticity, they also have their own ideas. Due to a bit…

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